24 in 2010
by PodBayDoors
Summary: O'Neill and Carter get another chance to save the world, and themselves.


Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime / Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money changed hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. Not to be archived without permission.

* * *

**24 in 2010**

"Let me ask you something: What does your dearly beloved ambassador say about all this?" Jack asked, sarcastically.

"I haven't had a chance to tell him." Sam said.

"Maybe he can help you." Jack said, still angry.

Sam brushed past him on her way out to the car. Jack turned around to watch her go. He hesitated, and then raised his voice enough for it to carry.

"All right."

Sam stopped, and turned around slowly.

"Explain it to me." The biting edge had left Jack's voice.

"Thank you." Sam said, somewhat curtly. She walked back over to Jack, who stood at the corner of his cabin. "Tell me how this deal works, and I might think about it." He paused. "Sit down over there and I'll get a couple of beers. We'll chat."

Sam sat down in one of two Adirondack chairs with a table in between, wrapping her long jacket around her.

The pond really was exceptionally beautiful. It was so isolated here, as if time had stopped. In these woods, one might not ever know the Aschen had taken over every other place on earth. With nothing but promises and some shiny toys. Jack came out and sat down with two open bottles of beer. He put them on the table and sat back.

"All right. I know we've gone back in time and then forward again, but we've never changed anything. That always struck me as kind of pointless, by the way." Jack looked at her. "Now you want to change something big."

"That's right, Jack." Sam looked intently at him with those pool-blue eyes he remembered so well.

"How?" He broke her gaze to pick up his bottle.

There was no whiteboard or even a piece of paper available, so Sam though for a moment, then made her left hand into a fist and laid it on the table between them. She stuck out the first two fingers.

"These are parallel timelines. Here," she tapped the ends of her two fingers, "Is now. Here," she traced down both fingers, "are the timelines leading back to the day we met the Aschen, here." She tapped an imaginary point on the back of her hand where the timelines would intersect. She noticed Jack had an old pen in the pocket of his shirt. Without thinking, she reached up and took it.

"You're welcome." he said.

"Sorry," It was easy to forget how many years had gone by, and all the things that had happened.

She marked the spot on her hand with a small dot.

"We think that every decision creates a new timeline. So if at this point, we _hadn't _run into the Aschen, we would have gone down this timeline." Sam tapped her index finger. "But we did, so we went this way." She tapped her middle finger.

"Well," Jack observed dryly. "You picked the right finger for this timeline. There's no question we got screwed."

"Jack." Sam couldn't help but smile.

"Go on." Jack took another drink.

"We- you and I- have seen alternate realities. We know other timelines exist. What we don't know is what happens when one is actually prevented from occurring. We also don't know what happens to the people that are already living when that happens. So if we succeed, we could get this." She folded up all except her index finger. "I don't know if we just shift over there, go out of existence as we are now, or what. But I do know that tomorrow, this little dot isn't going to be on my hand." Sam shook her head.

"Neither will this." Jack flicked her wedding ring with the pen.

"That's true." Sam sat back in her chair and picked up her bottle.

"Doesn't that bother you?" he asked, watching her face.

"Not as much as it should, I guess." Sam took a drink, then put her head back on the chair and turned to look at Jack.

"Joe's in a position to know what's going on. And if he doesn't know about it, then he hasn't been paying attention."

Jack thought for a moment. "Sam, I'm the last person to be defending Joe, but that's a little harsh, don't ya think?"

"I suppose so. But it's hard for me to change the way I feel." Sam took another drink.

_Why not, Sam? You have in the past._ Jack put his feet up. "You don't want to know what he knows."

"I guess that's it." Sam agreed. "Even if this timeline goes on- if we fail, I guess, I can't stay with Joe. I'll just be angry about it the rest of my very long life." She finished her beer. "Can you imagine me attending ceremonies and parties with the_Aschen_ given what I know?" She laughed bitterly.

Jacked looked over at her. He put his hand on her arm. "I'm sorry, Sam."

Sam was touched and a little uneasy about the way he looked at her. He was still as handsome as ever. "I should get going, Jack. We'll meet up again tomorrow."

"Wait just a minute. I bought a whole bunch of steaks today, and it'd be a shame to waste them, in anybody's reality. Why don't you stick around and help me get rid of a few?" Jack got up, picked up their empty bottles and went into the house without waiting for her reply.

Sam put her head back in the chair and closed her eyes. There was absolutely no sound but a pair of loons calling for each other. _Well, why not?_ Joe was on the Aschen home world, and she was hoping to avoid him for as long as possible.

Jack came back with another beer for her, and then he went over to the deck to start the grill. Sam bet the grill wasn't gas. She was right. Maybe keeping everything simple was the way to be, after all. She'd just never been very good at that. He came back and sat down. "So tell me the details." He'd shaved and changed out of his work boots.

She did.

Jack looked straight into her eyes. "Bad plan. We'll all die, you know."

"Everyone will, Jack. It'll just be more painful for us."

"God, Sam. You're more cold-hearted than even I remember." Jack shook his head and took a drink.

"Then tell me what I'm doing here?" Sam shot back. She'd been the bad guy for six years, and it was getting old.

Jack sighed. He wished he hadn't let his anger get the better of him. He'd thought that all this time would have tempered it, but seeing her again brought everything right back. _Oh well, what the hell. We'll all be gone in a couple of days anyway._

"Because I have a problem with you. I always have." Jack's deep brown eyes drilled into hers.

"You have lots of problems, Jack. I'm the least of them."

"I don't think so." He looked away. "You made the other ones better." He got up and went inside, and came back with the steaks and a coat for her. He handed it to her. Then he put the steaks on the grill.

She stood up and took off her jacket, and put on the coat, watching him the whole time. Then she went over and stood behind him. "You were so angry all of the time, Jack. I made the wrong choice, just like everybody else. You were right, okay? But while you were busy being right, you destroyed us."

Jack closed the lid on the grill and wiped his hands on a dishtowel. He turned around and looked at her.

"That's why I'm doing this, you know. I'm not as noble as you think. We deserve another chance."

"We won't remember anything." Sam smiled sadly.

"Maybe. But if you're right, we go back far enough in time, we actually _are_ our other selves, from the other timeline." He picked up her hand and tapped the dot. "True?"

Sam nodded. She'd always known he only played dumb when he was bored.

"And the timeline we're in now won't exist."

"Yes, we don't know for sure, but, probably."

"Then, the way I look at it, we'll just be here." He traced her index finger. And I'll get a chance not to mess things up." He rubbed her cold hands in the twilight. Jack looked down and took Joe's ring off her hand. "Put that someplace else for a while," he said, dropping it into her palm.

Then he turned around and flipped the steaks.

Sam called Daniel and told him Jack was in. They'd make plans to meet the next day. Daniel told her about his trip to Cheyenne Mountain, and she laughed. Jack watched her, and somewhere inside his soul, a tiny light began to flicker again.

"Tasty, huh?" Jack smiled at Sam as he handed her the last dish to dry.

"Very. But this must be the last house in America with no dishwasher," she teased.

"It's an old cabin, Sam. With just me up here, it doesn't make sense to put one in." Jack took a cup of water out of the sink then let it drain. "I'm going to make sure all the coals are out." Sam couldn't remember why she'd never made it up here. She was always working on something. She sighed and hung up the towel. Maybe she really did make things more complicated than they were.

In a few minutes Sam heard him call her through the screen door. She walked outside and saw Jack with his hands in his pockets, looking up. " Seen the northern lights before?"

"Oh, Jack, that's just beautiful!" Sam exclaimed. A shimmering curtain of reds, yellows and greens hung folded in the night sky, rippling silently. She watched, enthralled. Jack smiled at her, enjoying her pleasure in the beauty of the sky. Noticing the cold, she rubbed her arms and shivered. Jack stood behind her and gently enclosed her in his arms. Sam laid her head back on his shoulder.

"Aren't you going to tell me they're just charged particles colliding in the magnetosphere?" he said, looking down at her.

"No." Sam smiled. "It'd ruin the moment."

* * *

Jack made a fire in the fireplace, as Sam sat on the couch, a cup of coffee in her hands. "Jack, I need to get going. It's late." 

"I thought you didn't want to see Joe again before this is all over." Jack said, lighting a match, not looking up.

"I don't. He's not there."

"Then stay." Jack watched to make sure the fire would take.

Those simple words spoken in that deep, soft voice made Sam catch her breath. She knew what was next, and she needed to get out.

"I can't." She got up and picked up her jacket.

Jack stood, turned to her and put his hand up to her face. "What's the worst that could happen, Sam? If our plan works, we won't remember."

"If it doesn't, we won't forget." Sam took his hand down, smiled sadly, and walked to the door.

Jack felt the heat rise in his chest up through to his face. He vividly remembered the last time she'd taken off like that. He quickly walked to the door and shut it just as Sam opened it.

"No, Sam. Not again." Jack's voice was quiet and almost threatening.

Sam turned around to face him. "Jack. I've got to go. We'll all meet up tomorrow and finish it." The look in his eyes was so deadly serious that it scared her, but they were still beautiful eyes. She closed hers in an effort to fight away all the memories that came rushing into her head.

Jack took her face in his hands and kissed her. Sam pushed him back, pushing herself against the door. "I'm sorry, Sam, " he said, without a trace of regret. He held her hands and kissed her neck, her face, her eyes. "Do you remember how we used to drive each other crazy?" he whispered. She didn't answer. "Look at me." Sam complied. Jack looked intensely into her eyes.

"Yes, I remember." Some nights it felt like they barely survived.

"Then stay." Jack leaned into her and kissed her again, harder. He let go of her arms and eased her jacket off. Her keys fell out of her hand and onto the floor.

Time travel was easy for Sam and Jack. In a moment they went back six years, to a time when they were still married to each other.

Jack lay flat on his back and watch the sun stream in through the windows. He tried not to recall that this could be his last day- in this reality. He shook his head. Things that would drive other people to psychiatric medications were ordinary thoughts to him. And probably to Sam.

He looked over at her. She was awake, watching him. She smiled.

"How long have you been up?" he asked her.

"A while. I didn't want to bother you." Actually, she just liked to look at him.

"You know, on the other timeline, without the Aschen, we'll still be fighting the Goauld." Jack said, running a finger along her exposed shoulder.

"Yes, I guess so." Sam sighed.

"We could be dead right now," he said bluntly.

"In a manner of speaking, yes." Sam said quietly. "Quite a few things could have happened by now."

They were quiet for a while.

"Sam, we did all right for a while after that zatarc thing made us spill our guts, but what if it had been longer?" Jack rolled onto his side, propped up on his elbow. "The military folded in 2002 and we got out and got hitched. But we could still be in it right now in another reality."

"What do you mean, Jack?" Sam didn't know where he was going with this.

"When you got here yesterday, you said I'd threatened to take you here. I asked but you never came. When the zatarc stuff happened, you said we should leave it in the room. You walked out on me six years ago, and it was you who wanted to leave last night."

"If you're trying to make me feel terrible, it's working." Sam informed him.

"I hope I'm not doing this for nothing."

"Saving the human race isn't nothing, Jack."

"Yeah, I know. I'm famous for it." Jack brushed her hair out of her eyes. "You know what I mean."

Sam thought for a minute. Slowly a smile crossed her face. "I know how to fix it."

"Uh oh. This doesn't involve, you know, a particle accelerator or anything?" Jack said. "Bob's Hardware doesn't carry stuff like that."

"No, it's very simple." Sam caressed his face with the back of her hand.

"So?" Jack raised an eyebrow.

"Sorry, you'll just have to find out in our next life." Sam was grinning, now.

Jack looked at her. One thing he knew, if she thought it would work, it would. He leaned over and kissed her, his fingers running through her golden hair. He pushed her over onto her back and kissed her again, more insistently.

"Jack, we have to meet the team." Sam protested, weakly.

"Come on, Sam, I could be dead by tomorrow." Jack said, moving next to her.

"That's the oldest soldier's line in the book," she laughed.

"I'm an old soldier."

Late that afternoon, after they'd met and made all their preparations, they waited in Sam's lab for Joe to show up with the GDO. Sam had found him in his office earlier in the day. Jack didn't know exactly what transpired there, but Sam seemed calm and the GDO was on its way. Jack sat on the corner of Sam's desk in her lab. They wrote their notes. Sam said, "I need to see your note, Jack." He handed it to her, she read it and nodded, then turned it over and wrote something else on the back. Then Janet said, "Joe's coming."

Sam gave the note back to Jack. He put it in his pocket and they went over to the door to get the GDO from Joe.

* * *

The crumpled bit of paper fell out of the event horizon. O'Neill picked it up. 

"Well?" Daniel asked.

"You tell me." O'Neill handed the paper to Daniel.

"'Under no circumstances go to P4C970. Colonel Jack O'Neill.' That looks like your handwriting." Daniel was astonished and puzzled.

"It is my handwriting. And that's my signature." O'Neill said.

"Though you sent no such note." Teal'c stated.

"No." O'Neill looked confused.

Dr. Frasier looked closely at it. "Sir, may I?" She picked it up. "That looks like blood sir."

General Hammond knit his eyebrows together. "Have it analyzed."

O'Neill asked, "General, wasn't 970 on our mission list?"

"It was. Not anymore. I'm not taking any chances. I want P4C970 removed from the dialing computer immediately. Dismissed."

"Wait," Dr. Frasier said. There's something on the back. Major Carter, look at this."

"'The fishing's fine.' In my handwriting." Carter looked slowly and suspiciously up at O'Neill who was trying to contain a very big grin.

"Obviously, General, Carter had been making some scientific observations and I must have used whatever paper I could find." His eyes never left her face.

"Makes sense, Colonel. Just make sure that dialing data is erased." Hammond ordered.

"Yes sir."

Carter looked at him, smiling slightly. "I wonder why we sent it…I wonder when."

"Yeah. You gotta wonder." Jack smiled.


End file.
